In Pursuit of a New American Industrialism

Vacant Buldings in Pittsburgh: Advantage, DeSantis

One of the constant complaints about downtown Pittsburgh--and one of the most frequent justifications for government intervention in downtown's revitalization--is the scourge of vacant buildings. They attract bums and crime and hookers and drugs!

That's true, I guess. So it might be a good thing that the National Vacant Properties Campaign held its annual confab in Pittsburgh this week. I didn't go. But I wonder if they discussed the fact that the owner of quite a few of those vacant buildings just so happens to be... The City of Pittsburgh. You know. The city that bought or seized the properties and then never got around to doing anything with them. Then complained that nobody was doing anything with them, and pointed to that as proof that further intervention was needed. Then passed them along to favored developers at a loss.

The argument against this kind of quackery is a tough one to make politically, as it removes a good deal of the power that city officials wield. But take a look at Mark DeSantis and his shiny new economic development proposals. What's number one on the list? (Emphasis added.)

First, DeSantis says the city government needs to get out of the real estate business. DeSantis proposes reforming the Urban Redevelopment Authority for the 21st century. This involves merging the city planning department and the URA and focusing on neighborhood and community development.

"We have the URA, but right now that does little more than serve as a real estate and relocation business for big companies. The URA should be driven by neighborhood and community planning, not by the interests and ambitions of private developers," said DeSantis.

Comments

Looks like a great plan. I doubt the mayor could come with anything this good, which is why I predict he will copy some of DeSantis's ideas and say that DeSantis stole them from him.

There are too many vacated and abandoned properties around this city. There is way too much blight for a city our size. We had to move out of our house in Beechview because of the slum across the street. While it wasn't abandoned, they did not take care of it, were loud and noisey, did drugs, beat their kids, etc etc. Waking up at 3am on a weeknight because so and so's friend is playing loud rap music is not right. The police, when they would actually respond, didn't do anything to stop this stuff from happening. More on this and some pictures at my blog: